Unionist Commentator Exposed

Ireland’s Harigate: Examiner journalist plagiarises Spiked Online

By Brian Whelan

Earlier this year I helped expose Johann Hari’s dishonest and lazy journalism techniques. I have since been contacted by a number of people who hold suspicions about certain journalists stealing work and cutting corners. One of these instances was so shocking I could not skip over it.

While the Irish Examiner’s Dr Steven King is not as widely known as Johann the extent of his plagiarism is mind boggling and his political background as former chief political advisor to Nobel Peace Laureate and First Minister of Northern Ireland David Trimble marks him out as someone who should have known better.

A colleague of King’s has confirmed the details posted to his online profile, he has worked as Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) negotiator on equality, human rights, security and cultural issues in the multi-party peace talks leading to the 1998 Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.

King was Educated at Oxford, Queen’s and the University of Ulster, holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, a Master of Social Science in Humanities and a Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science.

I will show below that he has been extensively passing off the ideas of Spiked Online’s Brendan O’Neill as his own. I have contacted O’Neill who says he has never met King and never gave permission for any of his work to be reproduced by him.

The crusade against trafficking looks less and less like a real-world attempt to assist migrants and increase their freedom of movement and choices, and more like a super-moralistic fantasy campaign against evil and perverted Johnny Foreigners.

The anti-traffickers paint a picture of Conradian darkness, where women and children are bought and sold by evil gangs, and then forced into labour and kept in their place by threats of murder or voodoo vengeance.

O’Neill;

The anti-traffickers paint a picture of uber-Dickensian global squalor, of Conradian darkness, where women and children are bought and sold by evil gangs, and then forced into labour and kept in their place by threats of murder or voodoo vengeance.

King continues;

This distorted depiction portrays foreign women, especially those who end up working in prostitution, as objects rather than as active subjects. These women do not simply move around the world; rather they are trafficked across borders, smuggled and shifted like pieces on a chess board.

O’Neill;

Anti-traffickers patronisingly describe foreign women, especially those who end up working in prostitution, as objects rather than as active subjects. Apparently these women do not move around the world; rather they are trafficked across borders, smuggled and shifted like pieces on a chess board.

I could go on. But I have a lot to get through. On Wikileaks the similarity between King’s copy and O’Neill’s are shocking.

Steven King, December 1, 2010;

Today’s information incontinence among the powers-that-be in much of the Western world — which is now so bad that a couple of years ago an internal US government document about the problem of leaking was later leaked — springs from institutional incoherence amongst the political class.

Today’s information incontinence amongst the powers-that-be in much of the Western world – which is now so bad that a couple of years ago an internal US government document about the problem of leaking was later leaked – springs from political disarray and institutional incoherence amongst the political class.

If you take your time and pick through it there are scores of matches throughout this article, at least four paragraphs match up almost word for word. To save space I’ll continue to another example.

On war crimes:

King writes October 5 2011;

The transformation of The Hague into a gossip chamber, complete with quotes from the Oprah Winfrey Show, was an act of extraordinary cynicism. It was a transparently desperate attempt by The Hague to drum up some international interest in its trial.

The transformation of The Hague into a Hello!-style gossip chamber, complete with quotes from Oprah and info about Ms Campbell’s love of diamonds, was an act of extraordinary cynicism. It was a transparently desperate attempt by The Hague to drum up some international interest in its trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

This means he is the kind of person we can unambiguously hate. Where Islamist terror attacks, from 9/11 to 7/7, induce in some liberal observers torn and tortured feelings, where they want to condemn the violence but also feel the need to explain it as a natural reaction to evil Western foreign policy, Anders Behring Breivik is someone they can despise in an uncomplicated way.

Bizarrely King went back as far as 2002 to plagiarise Spiked’s easily identifiable article as his own in 2011.

King writes on April 20, 2011;

Is Europe slipping into the abyss? Are we really heading for a new Dark Age, with Europe’s Nazi past coming back to haunt us? Are fascistic far-right parties really ‘on the march again’ everywhere from Greece to France, from Italy to Holland? In a word, no. The current obsession with the rise of the far right tells us far more about the European elites’ crisis of confidence and legitimacy than it does about any Nazi reality.

Is Europe really heading for a new Dark Age, with its Nazi past coming back to haunt it? Are fascistic far-right parties really ‘on the march again’ everywhere from Greece to France, from Italy to Holland? In a word, no. The current obsession with the rise of the far right tells us far more about the European elites’ crisis of confidence and legitimacy than it does about any Nazi reality.

These are the same army of professionals who saw fit to control the men’s emotions, even to censor letters from the miners’ families, lest they trigger unhelpful emotions. They always know best, you see. One of the miners had asked his wife during a video link-up: “why don’t you write to me anymore?’ In fact she had been writing every day, but her letters were awaiting ‘psychological approval’.

Early on, every time a family member wrote a letter it had to be submitted for psychological evaluation first, before being sent down the so-called umbilical cord to the men underground, so that any material judged ‘psychologically inappropriate’ could be removed. There was uproar when the families discovered that there was a backlog of letters waiting to be okayed. One of the miners had asked his wife during a video link-up: ‘Why don’t you write to me anymore?’ In fact she had been writing everyday, but her letters were awaiting ‘psychological approval’

I could continue but I doubt many have read this far. I’m not a pedant by profession, I am a journalist and am proud have worked at some of the best names around including Sunday Times, News of the World and currently Yahoo! without resorting to any great acts of plagiarism. Feel free to reproduce the above or follow up the story.